Posts Tagged ‘CD Projekt’

Of the many, many games I have seen this year, The Witcher 3 stands out as just ridiculously ambitious, as I explained in this article. If you want to get a handle on just what a challenge CD Projekt’s Polish RPG commandos have set for themselves, you should take a look at the presentation they gave at the Eurogamer Expo last weekend. I’m not saying this game is definitely going to flatten the RPG opposition in the coming years – because they are biting off what only a monster can truly chew – but I can’t see any other icebergs as ominous or as enormous as this one.Read the rest of this entry »

The rise and rise of CDP has been a remarkable thing to watch. What we’re seeing is a studio spooling up to full power. The enormous ambition of The Witcher failed to really hit its mark, but the intention was clear. The even greater ambition of The Witcher 2 revealed CDP to be an RPG creator that was hitting its stride, as well as achieving its ambitions, and now the third game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, threatens to outshine an entire industry with its technical and artistic prowess. Full power, I suspect, has been reached.

There’s every reason for scepticism at this early, hype-manufacturing stage, but what we saw at Gamescom this year suggests that The Witcher 3 could be the most important mainstream game of 2014. If nothing else the rather blunt claim of “a world thirty-five times the size of The Witcher 2″ should get our attention.Read the rest of this entry »

It’s sort of difficult to understand why a game as good looking as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt would rely on a CGI trailer, because it’s simply doesn’t need it. Do these things even sell games? I know I buy because of the way the game looks when it plays, but do people get excited by story shine? I mean, it’s is really, really well done, but…Read the rest of this entry »

Odds bodkins! The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is pretty and make no mistake (the last time screenshots came out they were pretty enough to make Jim swear, but I told my mum I was on RPS this week so I’m not allowed to). It’s blooming pretty as a picture, and my codlings are tingling. They’d better festinate this game out ASAP, I don’t want to be sat here rod-jockeying while I’m waiting for it to arrive. Say hello to my mum, everyone!Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a wee piece of software with an odd status. On the one hand, it’s billed merely as a mod for CD Projekt’s mostly splendid RPG The Witcher 2. Yeah, yeah, people do that for roleplaying games all the time. On the other hand, the mod is made by CDP staffers, so it sort of becomes a sort of kind of official update, sort of. Kind of. “This is a private afterwork project. It is not a patch”, says the description, sternly.

Its primary focus is to remix the way combat works in the game – specifically, “to increase Geralt’s responsiveness and mobility.” We’ve reported on its planned existence recently already, but now we can report on its actual existence. As in, go download this massive sonuvagun right now.Read the rest of this entry »

Geralt’s hit the big time. He’s got his own open world, a handsomely haggard beard, and a simultaneous launch across multiple “next-gen” platforms. It’s the latter, however, that could spell his undoing – or at least make his witchy charms a lot less bewitching for a sizable portion of PC gamers. Console-makers, after all, aren’t too terribly fond of free updates, but CD Projekt’s modus operandi is handing them out like candy. Microsoft, meanwhile, has decided that draconian DRM is back in this season, and CDP’s been fighting on the opposite side of that battle for ages. Who will survive? Well, probably everyone, because we’re only talking about DLC for a videogame. But, if nothing else, PC gamers don’t need to worry. CD Projekt head Marcin Iwinski assured me that it’ll be business as usual for Witcher 3 updates on our platform of choice, even if consoles aren’t so lucky.

This may look like a blog post but it’s actually a combination of confessional booth and news stand. Gather round and confess the mistakes of your past as I do the same, then pick up the evening papers on the way out. As the headline suggests, my sin relates to The Witcher 2. I’ve never finished it. Or started it for that matter. The reason I haven’t started it is because I haven’t finished the first Witcher game, so I should probably do that. But what’s this? A small leaflet on the news stand informs us that Andrzej ‘Flash’ Kwiatkowski, an ex-modder and now ‘Gameplay Designer’ at CD Projekt, has returned to modding in an effort to rebalance the combat in Witcher 2. The file size is currently 8 gigabytes, which is too many floppy disks to consider, but should be smaller by release. Which should be very soon. Details below.

Once upon a time, CD Projekt studio manager Adam Badowski announced that he was strongly mulling the possibility of giving Geralt’s one-man show a multiplayer makeover. That was, of course, met with the gnashing of teeth and braying of donkeys, as very few people have picked up The Witcher and said, “Gee, I sure would love to see this sprawling story chopped up into a series of generic deathmatch modes.” And even fewer donkeys. Fortunately, when I spoke with CDP during GDC, it sounded like they were having some very strong second thoughts. And now, sure enough, The Witcher 3‘s proposed multiplayer mode is no more.

If you think about it, Geralt’s basically a bunch of super cool dudes packed into one hyper-dude, by which all other dudes are judged. I mean, he wields two swords, has lived multiple lives between his various states of memory having-ness, and is approximately 22 million times lustier than the average bear. Also, his newfound beard is considered an above average bear by most leading ecologists and bear raters. So basically, he doesn’t need multiplayer. He’s more than multifaceted enough all by his lonesome. Red flags were raised, then, when CD Projekt studio manager Adam Badowski strongly hinted that multiplayer’s in the works for The Witcher 3. During GDC, however, I had the opportunity to clarify the issue, and – whether the traditionally single-player epic sprouts a mound of hydra-like new heads or not – CDP insists that it has no intention of giving fans reason to worry.

Geralt has a beard now. We know this much for certain. Oh, and I suppose he’s also got that whole open-world thing going on. But adding a new number to your title’s a big responsibility, and a simple promise that you’ll feed it, water it, and add boats for some reason (because year of the bow is over; hopefully year of the boat will be a worthy successor) doesn’t always cut it. So what else is going into The Witcher trilogy’s 50-100-hour swan song? To hear CD Projekt tell it, pretty much everything they could think of. The Witcher 3’s scope is beyond ambitious, but that doesn’t mean the Polish powerhouse is skimping on details. Read on to see senior quest designer Jakub Rokosz and marketing mastermind Michał Platkow-Gilewski discuss revamped combat, managing difficulty/learning curve, how big of an impact choices can have, using sex for the benefit – not detriment – of story, and what multiplatform development from the get-go means for the PC version. It’s all after the break.

Good news! Better news. Best news. Geralt is back, and he’s realized that he’s capable of doing more than just moving ever-onward in a straight line. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt sees gaming’s favorite silver-haired sourpuss return with a heart full of purpose, a beard ripe from mighty mutant brooding, and – most excitingly – a fully open world teeming with possibilities. But why? What does the beard mean? Can we talk to it? Oh, and also the open world, I guess. How’s that work? I got in touch with CD Projekt senior quest designer Jakub Rokosz and (thankfully un-assassinated) marketing king Michał Platkow-Gilewski to find out everything. Or, well, most things – for instance, how Witcher 3’s world will stack up to Skyrim‘s, where traditional Witcher storytelling fits into that, how far-reaching the impacts of our choices will be, what sorts of people and locations we’ll encounter, and heaps more.

Make a break for the break. Otherwise, this intro will never end. (Warning: Beware of minor Witcher 2 ending spoilers.)

The absolute most surefire way to kill my in-game immersion isn’t graphical glitches or frustration or a trench-coat-clad man who grimly grumbles, “But maybe your entire life is a videogame.” It’s accents. Seriously, if I’m in some crazy fantasy land or multicultural space civilization, I refuse to buy the notion that everyone sounds like a bored 30-something American man. Refuse. Jade Empire, for instance, very nearly drove me mad. Mass Effect too, actually. But it’s not just BioWare. I honestly can’t think of many developers who’ve gotten it honestly, truly right. However, if nothing else, CD Projekt’s at least trying with Cyberpunk 2077.